New Illinois workers’ compensation law not perfect’

ROCKFORD — When it comes to workers’ compensation, close was good enough for the Illinois Legislature and the state’s business community.

Sean F. Driscoll

ROCKFORD — When it comes to workers’ compensation, close was good enough for the Illinois Legislature and the state’s business community.

Gov. Pat Quinn signed the workers’ compensation bill into law today, and made a four-city tour of the state to tout its reforms. He spoke at Ingersoll Machine Tools, flanked by business community advocates and legislators who sponsored the bill.

“We (created) a landmark law that will make a difference in Illinois in saving hundreds of millions of dollars for our employers while maintaining the fundamental rights of our workers in case of their injury at work,” Quinn said. “It really is a great accomplishment.”

The state’s workers’ compensation system has long been assailed by businesses as being too expensive. Among the law’s changes is cutting the medical reimbursement fee schedule by 30 percent, which Quinn said will save businesses $500 million a year.

The law doesn’t fully address the issue of causation, or linking an injury to a job-related action, but business leaders said today the legislators who crafted the bill did a good job.

“Is it perfect? No. But this group didn’t let the ‘perfect’ get in the way of the ‘good,’” said David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. “There are those who will say it’s not enough.
Maybe it’s not. We’re going to find that out over time. But I’ve been around here a long time, and know that this is a very, very big day.”

Einar Forsman, president and chief executive officer of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, said he hopes the law will be a foundation on which to build further reforms.

“The good part of this is any additional negotiations won’t have to begin at zero,” he said. “I think the next big focus will be on the causation side and giving businesses a little more role in the choice of doctors and identifying the cause of an injury.”

Despite the business support Quinn got today, the law is attracting criticism from other industry groups and workers’ organizations for either not going far enough or attacking employee rights. The National Federation of Independent Businesses issued a news release calling the new law “better public relations than public policy.”

Working Forward, a political action committee advocating the rights of injured workers, said the law is “a drastic take-away of employee rights to access to care and compensation.”